"Patriotic God fearing Americans often tout that "America is the land of the free and the epitome of freedom"That phrase is heard mostly from schoolkids. Its a sign of naivete. Schoolkids say here in OZ "its a free country"
It reflects the thoughtless naivete of childhood, that in many people carries on, for their whole lifetime
because they never question their own childhood beliefs.
Basic beliefs propagated are manifestly false. Such as "you go to school to get an education". Well not really, you are schooled to equip you to consume, conform and pay taxes. And replace yourself. Public education was started in 19th century Industrial England to produce an educated work force for Capitalism. At state expense of course.
The "freedom thing" is a complete mirage. Virtually everything is compulsory in modern societies.
The only freedom left in OZ is NOT donating your organs at death. Its bound to be compulsory soon.
The contradiction of much touted freedom compared to the seemingly fascist instructions from holy books might bear closer examination.
Yes, religions are largely about control but a person reading a fascist holy book is likely to ignore the bits they don't like. Give them some credit for that. So we must not ignore /undervalue the readers ability to interpret/ignore things and simply be eclectic for their own personal development. So religions are only a frame work that people can adopt to varying degrees. Obvious mistakes in holy books are no problem because they teach the reader to be critical and exercise their own reasoning (hopefully
)
And Christian values arise spontaneously in most people anyway, even atheists, which religions can't be blamed for.
These spontaneous values occur in most societies. Where is murder legal, stealing encouraged, adultery compulsory, mistreating others encouraged ?
Mixing fear and love in the same phrase should encourage people to exercise their judgment. Its a test of the reader.
The fear advice is clearly an insertion by scribes priests etc to hopefully improve compliance to state requirements.Its worked for many centuries controlling the gullible. What a scam !
This control stuff works easily on gullible literalists.
But not on the interpretive reader.
Word
freedom has a profound effect on our emotions regardless of its artificiality, bypassing our defensive reasoning. its so unreal it practically qualifies as a religious concept because their is no evidence to support its existence. You only have freedom to comply.
Powerful message it is in politics used by conservatives always saying "freedom of choice" is vital to capitalism when they campaign for single entity state owned assets to be privatised and chopped up and the best parts given to rich bastards. The having
freedom of choice of 31 brands of the same thing is claimed to be more efficient
Emotional button pushing with keywords works, to push lies, again and again, bypassing our defensive reasoning, conditioning us, Pavloving us to associate mutually exclusive concepts as completely harmonious.
So a glib answer to the original question is that we are conditioned by our society to lie and be lied to about a great many things. In fact nearly everything. Taking a courtroom oath swearing to to tell the truth implies that normally people lie.